Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Don't Drink the 5.7mm Koolaid

His full title is Dr. Gary K. Roberts, DDS (note that he is a dentist, not a trauma surgeon). I am not aware of any credible independent source online that clearly acknowledges DocGKR as an authority on the subject of wound ballistics, let alone gunshot wounds in actual human bodies.

He spends a lot of time posting on the internet, and he definitely has a cult-like following on a few internet forums, but that doesn't count for anything. He has certainly done extensive testing with bullets in ballistic gelatin, and some LE/military organizations have consulted him over the years, but that hardly puts him head-and-shoulders above the other individuals that are typically mentioned in these sorts of discussions. For example, the 28-year veteran of Houston, PD SWAT that I mentioned earlier, who has actually shot people with guns (including the P90), and served three terms as president of the TTPOA (Texas Tactical Police Officers Association).

Furthermore, the individual in question (DocGKR) has not even tested any 5.7x28mm load introduced in the last 15-20 years. What he thinks about an ammo type not offered to civilians (SS190) or an ammo type discontinued 20 years ago (SS90) is utterly irrelevant to a discussion on current 5.7x28mm loads.

Not to mention, two days after the Fort Hood shooting occurred, this same individual was already touting the early media reports that said the killer was stopped by a female police officer who had been shot with 5.7x28mm rounds.

Of course, we now know that the early news reports were inaccurate and that is not what actually happened; despite her bravery, the female police officer in question was incapacitated (and nearly died) from a hit to the leg, and the killer was actually stopped by a second (male) police officer while she was lying on the ground severely wounded.

All of this despite the fact that DocGKR had never even tested either of the ammunition types used by the Fort Hood shooter (SS192, SS197SR); not to mention the misinformation campaign (with regards to this caliber) that he has been pushing for years on forums all over the internet.

More recently, he tried to discount one of EA's 5.7x28mm loads (which he has never even tested) by simply scrutinizing a blurry photo of it that he found on the internet. The man is clearly not impartial; he made up his mind on this caliber about 15 years ago when he shot gelatin with the SS90 prototype cartridge.

Basically, what you are trying to do is use a completely erroneous appeal to authority (http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/appealauthterm.htm); in other words, a fallacy in which a rhetor seeks to persuade an audience not by giving evidence but by appealing to the respect people have for the famous. What's humorous is that the individual you are trying to use in such a manner does not even meet the notability criteria for his own Wikipedia article, and I explained above why that is the case.

Nevertheless, let's assume for a moment that DocGKR is definitely a highly respected authority on wound ballistics (i.e. shooting gelatin), and he dislikes SS190 based on his experience shooting gelatin with it. In that case, your argument would still be completely devoid of actual evidence (forum stories don't count and DocGKR has posted no actual evidence of any sort), and your "authority" on the subject is still basing his opinion on ancient testing done with a simulant (gelatin) and outdated ammunition (SS90 and SS190).

Anyway, you likely haven't even read any of those (ancient) papers. Half of them discuss a 23-grain plastic-core prototype cartridge (SS90) that was discontinued 20 years ago.

The two or three other papers on that list (discussing SS190) are irrelevant from the get-go, in light of the massive amount of verifiable information available on the caliber's performance in actual human bodies (as opposed to a simulant).

Papers aside, nothing else in that post was substantiated in any way. Even the picture in the post is extremely outdated (the projectile pictured is the SS90 prototype).




Prove it. Don't cite internet forum posts, either, because that isn't proof of anything.




Completely false. The first two U.S. agencies to issue the P90, for example, were the Houston Police Department and Richland County Sheriff's Department. See also:

http://www.hendonpub.com/resources/articlearchive/details.aspx?ID=309

I concede that the P90 is not all things to all people. However, for what I do, as a SWAT officer in a major city, it�s a great weapon.

<snip>

The 5.7mm ball produces a wound cavity about the size and shape of the best 9mm 115 grain JHP +P+, except the peak occurs at a deeper penetration. In the one shooting we had with the P90, the bullet performed well. In fact, the bullet performed exactly as it was designed. The autopsy provided detailed information about the wound cavity and travel of the bullets.

<snip>

If you operate in an environment like the one I operate in, you can�t go wrong with a P90 slung at the low-ready.

-- Sandy Wall of HPD (see below)



http://warriorsos.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-to-win-gunfight-by-sandy-wall.html

Sandy Wall retired from Houston Police Department after 28-years. He served for 22 years on SWAT, and was a three-term president with the Texas Tactical Police Officer Association (TTPOA). He is currently the Training Director for Safariland Training Group. Sandy is the founder of the Less Lethal Solutions, Inc. and the inventor of "The Wall Banger."




Again, prove it. DocGKR was just recycling hearsay in the same manner you are.




The only actual credible accounts of shootings with the 5.7x28mm would be:

- The Fort Hood shooting, which is very well-documented now (see some of the first-hand accounts, such as the one I posted below).

- A handful of U.S. SWAT shootings like the one that was described in the Houston SWAT writeup on the P90 (by a 28-year veteran of HPD).

- Dozens upon dozens of news reports on shootings (mostly fatal, and mostly done with the Five-seveN pistol, aka "matapolicias") from the Mexican Drug War, and nearby countries like Colombia and the Dominican Republic. The news accounts from Mexico are supported by crime scene photos showing 5.7x28mm casings and/or the deceased victims themselves (many of those are graphic so I won't post them here).

All of the shootings listed above clearly indicate that the 5.7x28mm is at least as effective as the common pistol calibers. The hearsay on this caliber that appears on internet forums is always completely unsubstantiated and unverifiable; people have been recycling these stories for years now, and you still can't trace them to anything more credible than vague posts on an internet forum.

As for the Fort Hood shooting, being armed does not make an individual impervious or magically resistant to bullets; the wounds (and their effects) are not different. As for "fleeing," the soldiers at Fort Hood were highly motivated during that attack, one way or the other; all of them were very intent on surviving and helping others survive. Many of the victims described feeling the effects of adrenalin during the shooting. Two of the victims even charged the shooter with chairs (according to the trial testimony, both were killed with shots to the chest before they could reach him).

The female police officer that responded to the shooting was also intent on stopping the shooter but by all reports, was incapacitated (and nearly died) by her leg wounds. The bullet shattered her femur into "hundreds of bone fragments" according to her personal comments on her blog, as well as other news sources. According to her blog, she subsequently underwent a complete knee replacement operation and she won't be able to do patrol work anymore.

All of this information is corroborated by a number of witnesses including Munley herself, on both her blog and in her trial testimony. See:

http://sgtmunley.blogspot.com/

I was given a second chance at life. I was also fortunate to not lose my leg. The awesome surgeons were able to do an arterial graph and repair my femoral artery. But for a couple of days, there were unsure about the outcome and if I was going to be able to keep my leg at all.

I stay in a lot of pain because the bottom of my femor is blown into hundreds of bone fragments that are pushed into my muscle tissue and until the surgery, they will not be removed.


http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20091202/articles/912029944

Sgt. Kim Munley, who helped stop the shooter Nov. 5 at Fort Hood, Texas, will have to get an artificial knee, which means she will not be able to return to street patrol duty.


http://www.kasa.com/dpps/military/army/Fort-Hood-hero-faces-more-surgery-_3228588

Munley underwent total knee replacement surgery in January and still walks with a cane. She said the most difficult part of her recovery has been learning to rely on others.




Wrong.

1. The P90 was extensively tested by the U.S. Secret Service prior to adoption.

2. The P90 was never in "limited" deployment. It has been the primary weapon of the ERT for over 10 years.

3. There is no credible evidence that the Secret Service has stopped using the P90 altogether. Some have said that the P90s are moving from the ERT to other branches of the Secret Service, but there is no credible evidence for even that claim.




Actually, you got that claim from DocGKR on the M4carbine.net forums, and it was (as always) ambiguous and completely unsubstantiated.




Jane's Information Group is a far cry from "gun magazine pieces."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane's_Information_Group

However, even a gun magazine would be more credible than the internet hearsay you've been citing all throughout this thread.




No, it doesn't. There are numerous expanding 5.7x28mm loads available now that penetrate 12+ inches in ballistic gelatin. For example:

http://www.eliteammunition.net/f/5.7x28mm_Elite_Ammunition_ProtecTOR_II.wmv




www.eliteammunition.net